Uber says it wants to make its service so cheap and convenient that people won’t need to own a car.
Photograph: Emma Howard

It’s 6pm on a Friday and even a police car, lights blaring, is stuck helplessly in the gridlocked traffic of central Kuala Lumpur. Motorcycles fill the junctions ahead of cars, including lines of Myvis, the best-selling product of one of the country’s two national car manufacturers. There’s not a bicycle in sight.

The car has become a status symbol in Malaysia – and one of the country’s biggest drivers of personal bankruptcy. Heavy government subsidies and quotas on imported vehicles have encouraged Malaysians to buy home grown cars. Car ownership here is the third highest in the world, with 93% of people owning, renting or leasing a vehicle, double that of neighbouring Indonesia and the Philippines.

Congestion is notorious in south-east Asia, with cities such as Jakarta and Manila ranking among the world’s worst for traffic. In Greater Kuala Lumpur it is estimated that congestion costs the economy up to 2.2% of GDP, while in Malaysia as a whole, a third of urban roads are “at capacity or extensively queuing”.

Now, in an unlikely move, Uber and its south-east Asian competitor Grab are claiming they can cut congestion in the region. “What we really want to do with our technology is put more people into fewer cars,” says Leon Foong, Uber’s general manager in Malaysia. “We are not competing against the taxi industry, rather we are competing against total miles driven for every single vehicle on the road.”

Both Uber and Grab’s hopes are largely pinned on a revolution in car-sharing. In May, Grab launched GrabHitch, a cut-price option that matches drivers and passengers travelling the same route at the same time. Uber is rolling out a similar scheme, UberPOOL in the region, with Jakarta becoming the 37th city worldwide to join it in May.

Joe G – not his full name – is among the first drivers to try out GrabHitch. In its first week in service, he took 11 trips, having found a passenger who wanted to join his 30km commute four times a week. He lives with his mother and brother, who each own a car.

“We used to share but with work it got difficult,” he tells me. “I can’t get there on public transport. Also, it’s very cheap to own a car here … I think [Uber and Grab] are revolutionising transport but I’m not sure about the congestion. People will still have cars.”

Today in KL we share a ride to a shopping area. He says my fare will cover his fuel costs. As we traverse the city on busy carriageways, the giant silver train tracks of the government’s latest efforts to improve public transportation snake above us. Once complete, the Mass Rapid Transit system (MRT) will comprise three train lines designed as part of the government’s commitment to increase public transport’s share of journeys to 40% by 2030.

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Few would dispute that the MRT is needed. Only 17% of commuters in Kuala Lumpur use public transport, compared with 62% in Singapore and 89% in Hong Kong.

Relieving congestion

Uber argues that it does not compete with public transport, but extends its reach. Data from May shows that 24% of Uber trips in Kuala Lumpur begin or end at a train station, which Uber says suggests commuters are using its service for the start and end of their commutes.

Grab has also announced projects to relieve congestion in the region, including a scheme to provide free GPS data to help public authorities manage traffic flow, and a partnership with the emergency services that will provide Grab with information so it can reroute its vehicles.

Even so, the fear is that taxi apps will bring more cars on to the roads. Initial studies by SPAD, Malaysia’s land public transport planner and regulator, show that Uber and Grab have 21,412 and 15,000 drivers respectively in peninsular Malaysia. However 80% and 81% of these are part-time drivers, so they are are likely already to be using a car.

It is too soon to know if ridesharing will make a difference here, but Uber claims that elsewhere the launch of UberPOOL has already led to 100m carshare rides, which it estimates have saved 6.8m litres of petrol and 16,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to the yearly emissions of 3,380 passenger vehicles. In San Francisco, rideshares now account for nearly half of all Uber rides.

But the crucial change that Uber says it would like to bring about is to make the transport ecosystem so cheap and convenient it no longer makes sense to own a car. UberPOOL is up to 50% cheaper than Uber’s other services, and Foong says the firm will soon have enough vehicles to create a service that is on-demand and therefore as reliable as a car. KL residents spend 10% of household expenses on transport, more than double the proportion of Hong Kong or Tokyo.

“It boils down to economics,” says Foong. “Public transportation is not that cheap. If you don’t drive that many kilometres on a yearly basis, it makes more sense for you to give up your car and use other forms of transportation.”

As Uber spreads across the globe it has consistently faced controversy, triggering numerous protests by the taxi industry and debates about its legality. A few weeks ago the firm was hit with a large fine by a French court for creating a service deemed to be illegal using non-professional drivers.

Although SPAD has previously disputed the legality of taxi apps, CEO Mohd Azharuddin bin Mat Sah remains optimistic: “We see the potential [hailing companies] have to help demand-based mobility without worsening congestion and pollution in densely populated urban centres. Whatever the outcome, one thing is for sure, the biggest winners in the mobility transition will be commuters, who will have many more ways to get around.”